9 posts tagged with "javascript"

Every programming language has at least one bottom value but JavaScript has two: null and undefined (Crockford, 2017). We are going to focus on null for this article because there is so much that’s going on behind the scenes.

What is null in JavaScript? null means no-value. When there is no value assigned to an object variable, it means the object doesn’t exist. If you want to delete the contents of an object from memory, you would assign that object to null.

By the way, null is not exclusive to just JavaScript, I have seen it on Java, C#, SQL and it works the same way it does in JavaScript.

Today I am going to help you save time and hassle by giving you a concrete answer whether you should learn JavaScript before learning Node JS or not. You have learned about Node JS and would like to dive in to become a backend developer. Since you asked, this means you don’t know JS or have little experience with it. Allow me to simplify this for you.

Should I learn JavaScript before Node JS? If you have taken another programming course before (like Python) then you have the proper programming foundation and can go ahead and start learning Node JS without taking a JavaScript course. You can pick up the fundamentals of JS while you build servers with Node. However, if this is the first time you are programming, then I would highly recommend you take a foundation web development course in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to get your ABCs down.

Today I am going to tell you what programming language you should learn if you want to build a social networking site like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or Instagram.

So what is a good language for building a social network? JavaScript. Out of all the languages and tools, JavaScript helped me quickly build a social networking site using Node JS. As a beginner I found Node JS to have the shortest learning curve when it comes to building a full-stack application such as Twitter and Reddit.

A closure happens when one function is inside another function, and the inner function wants to access a variable which belongs to the outer function.

In JavaScript every function creates its own scope. We may not realize it just by looking at the code, it will help if we visualize it like this:

What do you do with your user’s password? Do you store it into the database?

You don’t!

You should never store the raw password into your application.

Some badly coded websites store the raw password into their database.

They store the actual password and even send you via email:

This means your password is at risk.

(by the way, I didn’t code that website, I used a plugin called DAP in WordPress)

For the last few weeks I have taken a deep dive into the JavaScript programming language. Earlier this year I decided to work with Node.js so that I can work on just one language for the front end and the back.

I am now going in deep with JS. It’s fun.

I am following this collection of 33 Concepts in JS which is really helping me a LOT. I am tackling about one concept a day. One thing leads to another and I am spending most of my YouTube hours watching JS related videos and reading articles.

Staying focused in one language is helping me learn it quicker and soon I will become a master of it.

It’s not very easy to focus you know, every week I think about checking out another language. Languages like Go, Python, Kotlin, teases me in my YouTube feed.

There are some weird parts of JavaScript, which sometimes turn me off, but then again when I learn a new concept I get back up at it. I am glad I did not quit Node.js when I was getting bored with it.

As I mentioned before, I am not a big fan of JavaScript and predict it will be replaced in the near future. But until that time comes up (maybe in 5-10 years) why not be really good at it while it’s thriving?

JavaScript, I like it, I love to build things with it, but I am not a fanboy. JS is the de facto language of the web. The web browsers only understands JavaScript. For this reason, web developers all around the globe has to learn this language.

I chose Node.js to build the backend of my web application, just so that I can use a single language to build both the front and the back.

I am not a fanboy of this language, and neither should you.

Last week I ran into a real world problem.

It’s hard to keep track of my washed and dirty clothes. I have no idea how long it’s been since last wash. So I needed to track them by making a list and counting the dates.

The first idea is obviously writing them down on paper, but then I thought why not use my JavaScript skills to build an app to track it?

It’s time I look back at one of my very first JavaScript work and roast it.

It was 2014, I had recently finished JavaScript and JQuery lessons from Codecademy. It was about time I build something with my knowledge.

At that time I didn’t know what actually JQuery was. I thought it’s another language like JS. Now I know well that, JQuery is a library which goes on top of JavaScript. It makes writing code a little bit easier.

An overview of what I am going to build: